It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

Thursday, December 5, 2013
"It Came Upon a Midnight Clear"

This is one I have loved for a long time for the melody rather than the lyrics, and I expected to come here with a little snark of "so this is one that makes stuff up" because how do we know it was a "midnight clear" anyway?

And then, half a line into singing it this morning, I just went "Oh, right, follow the star, of course there are no clouds..."

Of course, the song is mostly about the shepherds, but the thing is: this song is really an Advent song, not a Christmas song.  I know it's treated as a Christmas song, and there are elements that seem like they could only work in proper Christmastime but no.  It is an Advent song.

The first verse is Christmastime -- that quiet that descends in the magic and wonder of Christmas (Eve especially), but the other verses:

Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world
Above its sad and lonely plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever over its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.

The only thing keeping this from being sung at every Advent Mass is the suggestion that it's already happening rather than we're waiting for the world to be like that -- but it's gorgeous.  That is the promise of being a person of faith: there are moments when the weary world goes still and we can hear the heavenly music playing over all our Babel sounds.

We make so much noise.  I just had music playing while I was trying to write this until a moment ago.  We makes ourselves weary drowning out the glory and the peace and the love and the music playing.  Someday the trumpet will blare and the world will hear it blast forth, we are asked to remember in Advent.

Somedays the world goes quiet and you can hear how it's already here.  That is the promise of every day living your faith.

And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! For glad the golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing:
O rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing.

That is what Advent should be.  We who wind along the weary way of life and faith in this wicked, weird, and wonderful world need Advent to remind us -- to tell us to take a breath, put down our burdens in celebration of Christmas, and listen for the music.  Lent is about self-correction and penance and deeply uncomfortable self-knowledge in a way that Advent, for all its similar solemness and purple labeling, is not.

Advent is, really, the opposite: lay down your burdens and remember that the price has already been paid, that someday Jesus will come back and the world will be at peace, take a moment to rest and remember that you are already saved.  You are already blessed.  You are forever beloved.  Take a moment and listen for the glory of God already surrounding you.

And, of course, not only is there beauty now, but someday it will not be so hard to find:

For, lo, the days are hastening on,
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever circling years
Comes round the age of gold;
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And all the world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.

Gorgeous.  An Advent hymn.